ELECTIONS 2024: Loudspeakers, Language, Sound and Action…

ELECTIONS 2024: Loudspeakers, Language, Sound and Action…

ByHarsimran Kaur

June 2, 2024

The moment of truth arrives on June 04, 2024. Preceding the blizzard of ‘election results’, blather of ‘truth’ and ‘lies’ cascaded under the sleeves of the ministers and politicians, finally burling through the unbridled loudspeakers.

Did what they say matter?

Were they being real?

Or, it was the charlatans fanning their flamboyancy in an act of whataboutery? 

The badinage anyhow begin with a sophistry of holding wine glasses in hand, and as it happens with our politicians going flip-flop, the pledge to remain insitu ran a bacchanalian. They were all indeed playing a game of bagatelle trying to push the ball in the number scale to reach the highest. ‘1’ could mean receiving subtle brush of hand from the attendees or a ‘4’ ricocheting a thunderous applause, or probably a ‘10’ signaled a war;

‘Phir ek baar Modi Sarkar—abki baar 400 par’

What does the Janta feel about the ‘400 par’ burlesque is to be seen soon? But, the rife of ‘Bharat Jodo Abhiyan’ acts as a bludgeon to the BJP rodomontade. Rahul Gandhi has been punctilious; meeting the poor and being the ‘atithi devo bhava’ to the bourgeoisie. PM Modi, however, is like a bogeyman circling the word ‘Shehzada’ around him.

Now, this is interesting! The ‘Shehzada’ walked for 4,000 km from Kanyakumari to Kashmir to lend an ear to people’s problems. I guess, at that time Mr. Modi was busy watching the film ‘RRR’, and so inspired was he that a catchpenny of ‘RR tax’ (Rahul & Reddy) scaling directly from Telangana to Delhi turned out to be nothing more or less than a casuistry. 

Still, I am predisposed to think around the asynchronous ambivalence;

‘Is it a conflict between the ‘Shehzada’ and the ‘Shahenshah’?

‘Is it an act of rebuttals deviating from the main purpose to keep democracy and secularism intact’?

‘Is it just about creating ballyhoo and getting rid of the bête noire’?

Why the Modi-Rahul battlement sounds like two people fighting for their own inclusive territory of justification?

The ‘caste census and economic mapping’ in the Congress manifesto received captious anomalies from the opposition. Thus, the war of vindication began! In cantabile, PM Modi was quick to make it a cause celebre,

“The Shehzada has brought an x-ray machine from abroad by which he intends to assess your wealth and redistribute it among its vote bank.” Let’s ask the ladies if they have already started hiding their ‘Mangalsutra’? If this is what ‘caste census’ can do to your integrity, our esteemed ministers might not gradually hit at the chignon decorated with diamonds on a woman’s head.

If ‘C’ for ‘caste census’ made the butterflies hit the stomach, ‘C’ for ‘CAA’ came around like goslings that the Congress flapped a hand to shoo it. The Union Home Minister ‘Amit Shah’ defied the turbulence in the water by posthumously invoking ‘Indira Gandhi’ in a battle of disgruntlements; the old lady might have her own past perfidies to tackle up there. Mr. Shah, it’s not feasible to get the ‘dead’ back ‘ek jhatke mein’. But, I agree with your accusation towards Congress that you cannot eradicate poverty ‘ek jhatke mein’. If Congress does win the Election 2024, Rahul Gandhi will have to put the canard at rest and work through the quaint.

Often the physiognomy reveals political intentions. This year, elections are more about discrediting the opponent not in calumny but also through agendas that are secularly entwined. If BJP feels that ‘Ram Temple’ has been a master stroke’, the congress finds it an issue of polarization; a majoritarianism casus belli. What then is the battle between?

  • Religious mediocrity vs. Political pastiche
  • Personal pointillism vs. prosody of pontifications

As Mr. Amit Shah buoyantly states,

“The battle is between Rahul Gandhi’s Chinese guarantee vs. Modi’s Bhartiya guarantee.”

Time will tell if the ‘guarantee’ too has a ‘guarantee’ to off load its limitations. If the prominent echelons were not enough for their banter, the Congress Neta, Jairam Ramesh, understated PM Modi’s political life as ‘Asatyameva Jayate’. Where did ‘Satya’ go? In hell or heavy waters or lies buried in the political consanguinity that’s holds the ultimate truth in furtive liaisons.

Let’s further take the example of Rahul Gandhi’s nomination for Rae Bareli, and opting out of Amethi. The entire façade is opportunistic! What truth the lie holds or what lie falls flat under the truth will be judged by the outcome on June 04, 2024. Rahul Gandhi candidly couches; “Amethi, Rae Bareli are not different for me, both are my family. PM Modi did not bat an eyelid to assimilate his own truth to the Shehzada,

“Daro mat, Bhago mat”

‘Fear’, Yes! ‘Fear’ is yet another emotion that pusillanimously runs through political cannonades. You don’t want to lose any beat that may besmirch the opposition. Sam Pitroda’s view on Inheritance Tax gestured the BJP to give its fear of being knocked off a belligerent behore. Yogi Adityanath peeled the skin off the ‘Inheritance Tax’ to call it a simulacrum of ‘Jizya Tax’ by Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb. 

Don’t the citizens of the country have a right to ask?

  • Why such polemics become a part of electorate process?
  • Why credentials lose their authenticity to the political rough & tumble.
  • Genuinity is a part of our conscious, and discipline of it makes us more tolerant. Why then we falter?
  • Governing a nation and ruling a nation are two different things. Good governance is good politics. Why then run away from it by indulging it recriminations?

As Rahul Gandhi states, “I am not interested in Caste, but I am interested in nyay”.

I am sure PM Modi might have a befitting reply to this analogy; ‘I am interested in Ram Rajya.’

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